It is the silence that settles loudest
Accumulations and unsorted deposits. Plus for paid subscribers: Postcards from the moss #1
Greetings from the moss,
The month feels old before it has reached its teens. It started snowing on New Year’s Day: those mustard gold fields you saw last week are a fading memory.
All is white, and it is bitterly cold.
The wind has rearranged the snow such that I couldn’t tell you how much has fallen. At one point fence posts were topped deeply but that has blown away. It varies from a few inches to knee deep, undoubtedly more where it has drifted across the fields. More wintry showers are promised, but yesterday saw one of those precious combinations of sun, blue sky and snow. In contrast to white on white, and white out, the cold mantle glistened. The smallest of things—lines formed by pushing the gate open, patterns of light from board fences—have again reminded that the most ordinary have glamorous doppelgangers too.
This week’s letter is in two parts. A series of gatherings from the week—my ‘usual’—to share with you all, and a first supplement to thank paid subscribers. Including the latter unfortunately (by default) restricts comments this week, a source of frustration to me, but short of two separate letters, there is no simple workaround. However if you happen to be reading this in the Substack app, there’s an option to ‘restack with a note’ and comment this way.
Accumulations and unsorted deposits
After snow dark earth where deer sleep, voids in the snow, rings of rest and slumber amid wiry heather.
Gathering finches decorate birch branches, taking turns at the feeder: goldfinch chaffinch siskin brambling greenfinch. Seasonal flashes of red and gold, pink and yellow, orange and moss.
The latest deposition crystalline white, a seasonal migrant, ground feeder, cold mantle, storyteller, expert tracker, light catcher, drifter. Snow
As snow falls fatly from a dark void it is the silence that settles loudest.
Water wrapped in solid form. Each flake a correction, fluid to mask our mistakes.
Darkest blue. Pinprick light, old and distant. Wind restless and loud. The day is sharpening its teeth.
Wind rake ice capped snow crust spin drift skeletal remains white out.
An eighth day of snow and ice. From under the warmth of my duvet I think of the moss, lying under its quilt of snow. The clear sky and blushing hills call me out. Terra reformed under the night’s wind, snow crisply capped. Skirt the edge of the wood as the first rays rake, low angled, from far hill to valley floor. Blue shadows, fluid forms, ungrazed pasture, becomes inland sea; each roll of buried Deschampsia a wave lapping. Or is it a desert? Dunes of cold, sands of ice.
Thank you to all of you who visit the moss with me each week. I am grateful for the gift of your attention, and your kind words in response to my letters.
Postcards from the moss #1
Searching for paper I pulled out two old packs of a six postcards that I had never opened. And so I began making; I have been busy…